Lazarillo

I won't deny that it's possible with a bit of luck and the right setup, to complete the SF without an MM or Defender. However, the discrepancy between having one and not is completely absurd. Difficulty-wise, everything other than the final battle is pretty low-end, but the final confrontation varies from "very close to impossible" if you don't have any of the right temps to absolutely trivial if you do.

As the SF stands right now, an MM or Defender who does absolutely nothing but fire that temp power in the last battle actually makes a bigger difference to the team than someone of a different AT who makes a solid attempt to contribute the whole way through. That is not the way this game should be.

See, I thought this was true, but the Kahn I was on last week, people spammed the crap outta it, and Reichsman went down very, very quickly, so I was starting to think there might be a correlation after all.

Glad to see that we were, rather, just awesome.

456 shards + 400 million influence for a completely solo Very Rare...

Still cheaper'n purples.

The little enthusiast on my left shoulder is saying: "Neat, something a little new and different! Hope it's as fun as Battle Maiden! It'll be great to get in and just do these, rather than have to sit around waiting for someone to organize. And if it doesn't work, hey, Shards. I'm liking this move to accessibility."

The little cynic on my right shoulder is saying: "Oh, good, more trials! The coolest thing about being an Incarnate is actually being less powerful relative to everything else. Call me when we're getting actual story content that makes it worth playing at these levels."

The big me in the middle is bouncing between which of the two deserves my attention more, but trying to be cautiously optimistic.

I've unlocked the slot on all my 50s (pretty much every AT except for Peacebringer). I've only slotted three of them, though: my Fortunata (who has a second Widow build), my Bane, and one of my Scrappers. And I've pretty much given up on the Widow. For the time being, I'm just going to stick to the two of them, so I have one hero and one villain, as it's just not worth it for the others.

Once they're done, I may try with another. Particularly, if I ever get my namesake character (a Controller) up to 50, he'll certainly have to go the Incarnate route, just on principle.

Soul Tentacles does good damage, and despite the DoT, is worth slotting as an attack. It can be made perma fairly easily, so there's really not a whole lot of need to slot it for duration, either. The Gravitational Anchor proc wouldn't be too bad if you can afford it, though. As mentioned above, if Ragnarok is too expensive, then screw it, stick a Posi's Blast in there or something. I actually went with Detonation; the extra range enhancement was nice for it, and it's an extremely cheap way to get a decent AoE defense boost.

I'll take Kahn to 'cuda any day. At least the final battle seems sort of thought out, there.

In 'cuda, you either have the right ATs to get all the temp powers, and you conquer it as though it's nothing more than a minor speed bump, or you don't have the AT mix designated by on high and you spend two hours beating on the guy only to realize you'll never win.

Kahn at least requires a little bit of being able to think on your feet.

I have mixed expectations for this. On the one hand, I've never even been tempted to consider an animal character in all the years I've been playing. On the other hand, I sort of wonder if that isn't just because the current options aren't very impressive. The new pieces do look quite nice, so I might try taking advantage of them after all.

We'll see what's all included in the promised sixty new pieces. Though I can say that if there are some cool new Claws options among them, that'll probably guarantee my ten bucks being spent.

My horror story? Ran the LRSF four times over the course of the week, and three of those were successful (the fourth would've been successful if we hadn't had multiple quits after a couple bad pulls in the last mission). That's terrifying. Makes me think I fell into a parallel universe or something.

I'm almost not dreading having to do a couple of 'cudas in the coming week.

1. There aren't any Ancillary pools available to VEATs. Patron pools are available, but must be unlocked like any other AT. Not sure what Mids is saying on that, but I can tell you from personal experience that only Patrons are possible.

2. Well, I took both on my Fortunata, as they're both fairly useful. Dark Obliteration is an AoE rather than a cone, which makes it a little easier to hit with. It's also front-loaded damage, whereas Soul Tentacles is a fairly slow DoT. It's a nice followup after you've done a Psychic Wail to finish off any stragglers for both those reasons as well.

1. TT: Assault is a 15% damage buff to your whole team for a minor endurance cost that requires no extra slotting. There's not really any reason to skip it. Even better take it and regular Assault and your whole team gets an extra-SO's worth of damage. Not too shabby. I wouldn't but a whole lot of priority in regards to "must have it now", but I'd definitely grab it.

TT: Leadership is nice in the early parts of the game before Accuracy SOs, and then again in the late game where you start seeing bigger level discrepancies and enemies that can either buff their defense or debuff your perception. It'll make a big difference there. So again, I'd recommend it, but if you're already in your 20s or so, you can put it off a bit.

2. Mind Link is pretty danged hard to make permanent on a Fortunata due to its longer recharge time (not impossible mind you, but difficult). I found it much easier, and cheaper for that matter, to focus on defense, since with that, there's no need to worry about downtime.

I've decided not to bother with Incarnate stuff at all on all but two characters for the time being, and for those two, I do intend to take them all the way to the Very Rare, just for the sake of squeezing every last ounce of oomph from their respective slots. Cardiac on an /Invuln scrapper to cap his Smashing/Lethal resistance, and Musculature on my Bane, just to see exactly how high I can crank the damage.

The one thing I'll note is that you can replace Weave with Maneuvers and still be soft-capped to Melee and Ranged while not needing the whole fighting pool. The Endurance cost is very slightly higher, but shouldn't make a difference, and would further enhance any of your teammates as well. I wouldn't call it necessary, but it'd be a way to free up some power/slot picks.

Running an LRSF this morning, it occurred to me that his presence is actually a good player convenience. To my knowledge, he has to be beaten to end the mission, but he doesn't come running with the others, so if you have a disconnect in the final mission, or someone just zones to the hospital after their 50th Phalanx Faceplant, he's there so you can stall for time before completing the mission. Well, assuming that nobody kills him first, anyway.

Recluse and Aeon both seem to change their "just beat you" line every time I do the TF. I figure the devs just go in and do a quick find/replace every new patch to keep things interesting.

I don't think I'd mind it much if the padding didn't feel...so frivolous. In order to work up to the Very Rare, we have to craft a second Rare...why? It'd be handy maybe if you could use an Alpha boost from a different tree, but getting a slightly different secondary effect is just so...I dunno. It makes it feel like a timesink. They could just add a few more components to the time it takes to get a Favor and we'd have the same sink...but it wouldn't feel as much like you're sinking time just for the sake of sinking time, I think.